Lois Braverman, MSW, is President and CEO of the Ackerman Institute for the Family. With many years of experience in education, consulting, and private practice, Ms. Braverman was most recently the President of the Board of Directors of the American Family Therapy Academy (AFTA).

As President of AFTA’s Board of Directors, Ms. Braverman successfully increased membership and helped ensure the organization’s future by establishing the 21 st Century Endowment Initiative. Under her leadership, AFTA also co-sponsored a conference with the International Family Therapy Association, bringing together family therapy practitioners from 45 countries. Prior to joining AFTA, Ms. Braverman served as founding Director of the Des Moines Family Therapy Institute, which provides post-masters training to family therapy practitioners in the Des Moines area. She was also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Iowa School of Social Work, where she was honored with the Distinguished Alumna Award in 1990.

Ms. Braverman’s many publications and international presentations challenge the assumptions implicit in major schools of family therapy about women’s role in the family, in the workplace, and in the psychotherapeutic setting. Her special areas of interest are women’s friendships and marital relationships, depression and marital dynamics, couple therapy with marginalized couples, and issues of power in couple therapy. She was the founding editor of the Journal of Feminist Family Therapy; serves on the Board of Advisory Editors for Family Process; and is the author of Women, Feminism, and Family Therapy, published by Haworth Press. She was also honored with the American Family Therapy Academy’s “Innovative Contribution to Family Therapy” Award in 1994.

lbraverman@ackerman.org

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